Ceasefire!: Why Women and Men Must Join Forces to Achieve True Equality

First of all let me assure you that there is nothing wrong with American women. There is something very wrong, though, why American feminism "group-think", notably "victim feminism" (Oh, come on, is there *really* any other kind of influential feminism nowadays?). Which strikes me as very, very odd. Blame it on my European identity, cultural and otherwise, but the increasingly virulent rethoric of victim feminism makes absolutely no sense to me. It takes women who are born into one of the richest societies in the civilised world and clothes them in the garments of a Third World-esque "oppression". The irony is, of course, that most of these women have not met with much oppression during their lives and that they have a world of opportunities open to them in a way undreamt to their ancestors, both male and female.Not that I intend to deny that the odd male chauvinist still exists, but to claim that the way to eliminate anti-woman attitudes is by encouraging anti-male attitudes is unacceptable in my book. And for anyone with more than a nodding acquaintace with moral and ethics, it is not only unacceptable, it is positively totalitarian. Another thing that I find intriguing (and I say intriguing to avoid the over-emotional conotations of "downright angry") is this mindless connection of victimhood with power. I look at the real victims: at the Third World children who die of hunger in countries brimming with natural riches, at refugees that wait and wait for a peace that will never come, and wonder where does all this "patriarchal oppression" rethoric comes from. I have a little game to pose to those women who are bent on blaming men for their every personal shortcomings. I have a little game to pose to those men whose feelings of self-loathing are so intense that they have to rationalise them into that tiresome "I am oppressive by nature, deserving of contempt, blah, blah, blah" mantra: how about growing up into a full human being for a while? How about starting to assume full responsibility for your actions once in a while? Oh, I can sympathise with these trends. I can sympathise completely. It is easier to say "We live in a society that oppresses women" than to say "If I do not develop my full potential it is my fault". It is easier to say "I'm not being promoted because I am a woman" than to say "I'm not being promoted because I'm not qualified enough". It's easier to say "I'm not violent, I'm a victim" than to assume responsibilty for your bad actions and accept the just punishment. But ultimately, this is counter-producive. It is only a form of neo-paternalism.And what is so good about Young's book is that she sees this. She is able to see through all that screechy rethoric and poke at the deep truths beneath it. She knows that although there are certainly individual men and women who are victims of one thing or the other, neither women nor men are "victims" or "oppressed" or anything else. Real femini

Well, it appears we have a woman who is not quite entranced by miss Young's theses. Perhaps I can mince a word or two on that subject. We can take the bad reviews as a glowing thumbs up for this book; anything that only gets long five star reviews on the one hand and hate-email from one or two determined Berkely undergrads on the other has to be good by simple logic. Hated by Berkely undergrad= good book, quod erat demonstradum. The negative attention paid to her also lends creedence to Miss Youngs ideas in themselves- has anyone noticed the hatefull and avalanch-like attacks come form the political leftist feminists? Sort of throws a little doubt on the monumentally oppressive patriarchial culture notions and the idea of a backlash, doesn't it?Or to put it another way- If there is a war going on, why are all the vicious and intolerant fighters on the left-feminist side? All you hep cats take note- the side that won't even consider other ideas is the side that is on the wrong side of history. Read Miss Young. I am.

If Cathy Young was a man she would have been accused of being a sexist, misogynist, battering, child-molesting, anti-lesbian rapist, for having the audacity to write this book. And the fact that I completely applaud it probably makes me one in most anti-male feminist (male or female) minds. I personally do not understand how anybody could see anything in this book that has to do with promoting misogyny, rape, abuse, violence etc. In fact I challenge anybody to present one statement from this book that makes light of ONE of women's true woes. I defy anyone to state one provable lie i.e. untruth in all the facts Ms. Young has presented. The thought to me of all the critics of this book is that they had already made up their minds before they read it. I mean, if I discover that, truly, only 1 in 1000000 foxes die of human cruelty every year and publish fact this when the Protect The Fox organisation says 400 in 1000000 die using faulty methods of research, am I then anti-fox?! Likewise, if rape rates are lower than NOW thinks, is it "pro-rape" to make known the lower number? Tell me true, is it anti-woman to note that a father can often be just as good at taking care of the children as the mother? Is it anti-woman to tell the truth that a father is as important as a mother in a child's life? Is there any justification for the belief that a father is only as welcome in the child's life as the mother wants him to be? Is this not anti-child?Ms. Young deals with issues that have brought the sexes into conflict in the past thirty years, fueled by agenda driven people (you may accuse me of being a rapist here, if you like) who are more dedicated to an ideology than the lives of the women they claim to represent. The agenda driven people I talk of know that to admit that they have made progress means that they stand to lose their jobs so they continue to inject more venom into the relations between the sexes, causing more misery to all. Feminism has done many wonderful things, and I will move heaven and earth to ensure my wife's, sister's, mother's, aunt's, niece's and (especially) daughter's rights to equal opportunity, security, to pursue love and joy in their lives, but not at the expnense of my brother's father's, uncle's, nephew's and son's rights to the same. And I refuse to take sides. The truth is we can achieve both, and we should, even if it means pissing NOW off.Thank you Ms. Cathy Young. You are a gem.

Cathy Young defends women's right to be bad, to do bad things, to be wrong, to be violent - and to accept the responsibility for such actions. Who would want these rights? Well, today's women should want them - they are the right to be fully human. Common wisdom, fed by advocacy groups (as Young so skilfully delineates), gives us two images of women: 1) the forbearing and sensitive nun, easily offended by the slightest hint of sex or physical confrontation, and 2) the "woman warrior" - infinitely capable and contemptuous of men. If women commit violent acts (and, as Young proves beyond doubt, they commit these acts regularly) it must be in self-defense (the media and the Ad Council tell us). Young's idea is revolutionary and could get us out of the Edwardian simplicities of our current dogma - that men are predators and women are pure and innocent. Women are human, capable of evil, and deserve the right to be held responsible when they do wrong. Now that's equality.

It is symptomatic of the times that any criticism of feminist orthodoxy can only be delivered by a woman. Even then, any hint of allegiance to conservative politics is an automatic disqualifier. It labels one as a reactionary mouthpiece for the alleged forces of patriarchy. Fortunately, there are a growing number of young women challenging feminism's victim-cult politics. Unfortunately, contemporary pioneers for sanity in gender politics such as Rene Denfeld and Christina Hoff Sommers are not likely to get equal time - if they get any at all - in university women's studies departments.Equally so, Cathy Young, a regular columnist for the Detroit News and contributor to Reason Magazine, is not likely to hit the recommended reading lists of those with a partisan interest in the exploitation male female differences. As the title Ceasfire! suggests, the gender war has gone too far and, as Young exhaustively documents within its covers, damaged too many innocents.Says Young, "Things were simpler a decade ago, when there were just feminists and anti-feminists." But today there are two feminisms. One is 'equity' feminism; that is simply the commonsense call for equal rights and opportunities. Young is solidly in this camp. No problem there, but its radical counterpart, dubbed 'gender' feminism, defines itself in warlike terms against male oppression. Proclaiming victim status for women leads to a hoard of injustices, not only against men, but nearly as often against women.Young doesn't suggest men and women are androgynous, but unlike suggestions of Mars and Venus, she places them both solidly on planet earth. They share substantially the same ability to wrong each other - and that they do. Chapter by chapter, myths which are promoted by feminism's fringe, but nonetheless widely accepted in today's political climate, are systematically exploded.Among these are the tenets of (I dare not say, but Young does) the battered women's movement. Young doesn't deny the existence of domestic violence, only that it can be a two-way street. As she points out, respected University of New Hampshire researchers consistently report women as often as men initiate aggressive physical contact - the so-called 'first punch.' This is a human problem, not part of the feminist declared "epidemic of male violence against women." Mainstream media, as Young repeatedly reveals, either submerges, misreports or misunderstands these complicated dynamics. From there, legislation is enacted on false assumptions.By and large, gender feminism denies the inherent capacity for violence by women. Women's transgression are dismissed as reactions to an oppressive patriarchal world. Men are presumed guilty, both in feminist theory and in practical application of the law. But recent studies reveal that lesbians (presumably they are feminists) have high rates of violence toward their own partners.However, Ceasfire! is not an anti-women polemic. A chapter head